Bryan Quigleyhttps://bryanquigley.com
Wed, 18 Mar 2015 16:50:02 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Packaging Noteshttps://bryanquigley.com/for-beginners/packaging-notes
https://bryanquigley.com/for-beginners/packaging-notes#commentsWed, 18 Mar 2015 16:50:02 +0000https://bryanquigley.com/?p=2137Continue reading Packaging Notes→]]>I’ve done easy fixes (debdiffs) in Ubuntu and find I need to look up exactly how I want to do a debdiff every time. Last time I had to look at 5 different docs to get all the commands I needed. The bug I based this on was a debian only change (Init script), I plan to update it next time I have an actual source change.

]]>https://bryanquigley.com/for-beginners/packaging-notes/feed1Would you crowdfund a $500 Ubuntu “open to the core” laptop?https://bryanquigley.com/uncategorized/would-you-crowdfund-a-500-ubuntu-open-to-the-core-laptop
https://bryanquigley.com/uncategorized/would-you-crowdfund-a-500-ubuntu-open-to-the-core-laptop#commentsSat, 22 Nov 2014 03:25:24 +0000https://bryanquigley.com/?p=2117Continue reading Would you crowdfund a $500 Ubuntu “open to the core” laptop?→]]>UPDATE 2 (11/28) – We’re 77% of the way to 1000. I guesstimate we would have raised at least $300,000 if this we’re a live campaign.

UPDATE -I’ve removed the silly US restriction. I know there are more options in Europe, China, India, etc, but why shouldn’t you get access to the “open to the core” laptop! This would definitely come with at least 3 USB ports (and at least one USB 3.0 port).

Since Jolla had success with crowdfunding a tablet, it’s a good time to see if we can get some mid-range Ubuntu laptops for sale to consumers in as many places as possible. I’d like to get some ideas about whether there is enough demand for a very open $500 Ubuntu laptop.

Would you crowdfund this? (Core Goals)

15″ 1080p Matte Screen

720p Webcam with microphone

Spill-resistant and nice to type on keyboard

Intel i3+ or AMD A6+

Built-in Intel or AMD graphics with no proprietary firmware

4 GB Ram

128 GB SSD (this would be the one component that might have to be proprietary as I’m not aware of another option)

Ethernet 10/100/1000

Wireless up to N

HDMI

SD card reader

CoreBoot (No proprietary BIOS)

Ubuntu 14.04 preloaded of course

Agreement with manufacturer to continue selling this laptop (or similar one) with Ubuntu preloaded to consumers for at least 3 years.

Stretch Goals? Or should they be core goals?

Will only be added if they don’t push the cost up significantly (or if everyone really wants them) and can be done with 100% open source software/firmware.

Touchscreen

Convertible to Tablet

GPS

FM Tuner (and built-in antenna)

Digital TV Tuner (and built-in antenna)

Ruggedized

Direct sunlight readable screen

“Frontlight” tech. (think Amazon PaperWhite)

Bluetooth

Backlit keyboard

USB Power Adapter

Take my quick survey if you want to see this happen. If at least 1000 people say “Yes,” I’ll approach manufacturers. The first version might just end up being a Chromebook modified with better specs, but I think that would be fine.

]]>https://bryanquigley.com/uncategorized/would-you-crowdfund-a-500-ubuntu-open-to-the-core-laptop/feed45Adobe Flash on Firefox/Linux EOL – Summaryhttps://bryanquigley.com/crazy-ideas/adobe-flash-on-firefoxlinux-eol-summaryrecap
https://bryanquigley.com/crazy-ideas/adobe-flash-on-firefoxlinux-eol-summaryrecap#commentsFri, 14 Nov 2014 02:20:35 +0000https://bryanquigley.com/?p=2110Continue reading Adobe Flash on Firefox/Linux EOL – Summary→]]>We just ran a session [1] on what to do about the upcoming EOL for Firefox/Linux in 2017. In short, we’re not planning to diverge from Mozilla’s direction. The goal is to have Flash work today, and to become irrelevant over time. Hopefully reaching the point of being irrelevant by 2017. There are ways for you to help! See below.

Distributing Firefox and Chrom/ium plugins now possible

A deal was reached with Adobe to distribute NPAPI and PPAPI Flash in Canonical Partners Repo! (No more grabbing PPAPI from Chrome to get it to work in Chromium. No more “downloader” packages necessary for Firefox either.) This should help make thin

How can you help make Flash go away?

On any browser, any platform (that has Flash of course)

Use less Flash. See if you can do step 1. If you can proceed to step 2, etc.

Make Flash Click to Play.

Disable Flash.

Uninstall Flash.

To do these on Chrome, browse to chrome://plugins/, On Firefox go to Add-ons -> Plugins.

If their is a site that doesn’t work without Flash, see if you can load their site on a mobile device. Either way contact them and ask them nicely about removing the Flash content to get more hits, or for enabling at least the mobile site for non Flash users.

Run a Beta browser

Generally both Firefox and Chrome will push new web technologies in their Beta browser. Many of them have the potential to help make Flash less relevant. Help make them more stable by testing them!

Run Firefox Nightly

Try running Firefox nightly. We could always use more testers. Specifically, we might get a more aggressive Mozilla when MSE is done being implemented (which should make youtube even more HTML5 video friendly).

Of course, there a bunch of other useful features Mozilla is working on to make browsing better. Help would be welcome there too! Report bugs on issues you have.

My Todo List

Investigate why Youtube Live videos sometimes don’t work without Flash. (Even in Chromium).

Figure out why my Nightly install doesn’t have working H264..UPDATE – because it’s not designed to yet! See here – http://andreasgal.com/2014/10/14/openh264-now-in-firefox/
If you have H264 working in Firefox it’s likely due to GStreamer support included in the Ubuntu (and many other distros) builds. Upstream Gst1.0 support is waiting on infrastructure [3].

Hopefully I captured everything right.. but if I didn’t please let me know!

application included wine (try building wine on 64 bit…) and virtualization

some 64 bit users use 32 bit images for virtualization to use less RAM

Not in survey but I know of others who use 32 bit specifically to work with Android.

Arch vs Desktop Environment vs Release

Please do not use this to really compare desktop environments! If multiple answers I took the least resource intensive one! (Next time I do this.. I should just require users to pick a primary one)

Impacts over Releases

Switch from Ubuntu – also includes plans to stay on old unsupported version until hardware dies

Moderate is somewhat a catch all

If I do this again, I should just have a 1-5 sliding scale, in addition to a text field.

Users are concerned about having to throw out old machines, not having an upgrade path to go from 32-> 64 bits, and the cost to upgrade.

Select Comments (many more in the raw data of course!)

As an aspiring software developer, phasing out 32 bit support would be great for me as it means one less build to maintain.

I plan on reinstalling Ubuntu on this laptop as a 64bit install at some point anyway.

Unless the schedule changes, no impact. We’re planning to do the switch late 2015 / early 2016.

I will have to stay on 16.04 forever on that machine. The needed drivers are not going to be available in an open-source form.

My parents + my children have no PC

we have old PC’s in the hospital and i don’t think this hardware would be upgraded.

If the majority of freely given computers we receive are still 32-bit by then, we’d have to respin another distro. But, like PowerPC; all good things must come to an end.

Just need to figure out how to make the switch. If it means re-installing, bah.

It is terrible, because my eeePC only has 1GB in it.

One more reason to decommission the hardware.

I think the original plan can still work, but like any good survey we know have more questions to ask!

Lubuntu/Xubuntu support for 14.04 LTS is 3 years not 5. It’s going to be a LOT higher impact if they don’t have support in 2019/2020 (which would be the case if 16.04 is 3 years too). This could obviously be mitigated by moving 32 bit to ports and having it be opt in. Lubuntu/Xubuntu 18.04 with 3 years would get us to 2021.

]]>https://bryanquigley.com/crazy-ideas/32-bit-usage-survey-results/feed5Still running 32 bit Ubuntu?https://bryanquigley.com/crazy-ideas/still-running-32-bit-ubuntu
https://bryanquigley.com/crazy-ideas/still-running-32-bit-ubuntu#commentsTue, 21 Oct 2014 03:38:54 +0000https://bryanquigley.com/?p=2093Continue reading Still running 32 bit Ubuntu?→]]>I’m considering a proposal to have 16.04 LTS be the last release of Ubuntu with 32 bit images to run on 32 bit only machines (on x86 aka Intel/AMD only – this has no bearing on ARM). You would still be able to run 32 bit applications on 64 bit Ubuntu.

Please answer my survey on how this would affect you or your organization.

]]>https://bryanquigley.com/crazy-ideas/still-running-32-bit-ubuntu/feed24Want to disable SSL 3.0 for non-technical users…https://bryanquigley.com/uncategorized/want-to-disable-ssl-3-0-for-non-technical-users
https://bryanquigley.com/uncategorized/want-to-disable-ssl-3-0-for-non-technical-users#commentsWed, 15 Oct 2014 04:56:45 +0000https://bryanquigley.com/?p=2090I just created an add-on that literally just changes the one bit* needed to disable SSL 3.0 support in Firefox

I did a comparison when 14.04 was first released on the memory usage of different Ubuntu flavors. Some takeaways:

Lubuntu has zRam (automatically compress memory to save space) enabled by default making it hands down the most usable version with low-memory. It’s the only flavor to have it enabled on the LiveCD.

The real cost of 64 vs 32 bit is usually only 128 MB.

Lubuntu (32-bit) still boots with just 160 MB of RAM!

The Ubuntu kernel can’t boot with only 128 MB of RAM.

All testing was done in virtual machines (Virtualbox) and obviously with different hardware you’re results will vary. You can infer some of my methodology from the notes below. This was done months ago and I don’t remember all of the details. The results may have changed with software updates, especially to Firefox.

]]>https://bryanquigley.com/uncategorized/ubuntu-14-04-livecd-memory-usage-compared/feed0Lead (Pb) in the USAhttps://bryanquigley.com/politics-2/lead-pb-in-the-usa
https://bryanquigley.com/politics-2/lead-pb-in-the-usa#commentsFri, 20 Jun 2014 13:45:58 +0000https://bryanquigley.com/?p=2059Continue reading Lead (Pb) in the USA→]]>Live in the US? Did you know that we put Lead (Pb), a known neurotoxin, in:

Garden hoses (that have been shown to leak Lead into the water)

Power cords (including laptop cords)

Carseats (mostly to the base, some other toxins have been found in the seat itself)

Likely more, it’s apparently not uncommon to be added to plastic…

In the EU you aren’t allowed to put Lead in the above. I think it’s time we joined them!

NOTE: These are more personal opinions and not necessarily those of my employer, your employer, or any of the businesses and government in my town,city, state, country.

DRM

It is *never* something people want. Have you ever heard someone say “I really want this content I bought/”rented” to be harder to share/remix/watch and to have even greater legal ramifications if I do so?” They do want content made by Hollywood, but those are different things.

DRM – Mozilla being played?

This reminds me of the time Chrome said it would drop H264 [1]. From what played out in public it seemed that Mozilla didn’t see the need to push for H264 sooner because they trusted Google to actually drop H264 support.

In a somewhat reverse situation, Mozilla just said they will adopt EME in Firefox before any of the possible benefits are realized by others. Right now it’s being implemented only in Chrome and IE 11 [2], and I’ve only seen it used in Chrome OS and IE 11. From my point of view I would have preferred if Mozilla had at least waiting to see if we will get more platform support from major vendors on this. (aka Linux support for Netflix)

If so, maybe the increase in Linux market-share would provide some balance to the DRM’s negative affects. Making free software overall a net win. If so, I would (still reluctantly) support Mozilla’s decision here if they saw it as an end to get Hollywood media to more freer platforms. But why not wait and see if this is actually true with Google Chrome/Netflix on Linux?

Reduce “Hollywood” power

I would like to see Mozilla pushing Indie/Crowdsourcing media, like:
Paid streaming site for indie videos https://indieflix.com/
Public broadcasting http://www.pbs.org/
Better publishing http://www.getmiro.com/
Basically, How can Mozilla use it’s capabilities to better change the media landscape? (A slightly “better” form of DRM should not be the answer to this question).

Abandon the DoNoTrack header, provide actual options

It doesn’t work (and almost certainly never will) and it gives people a false sense of doing something. You are giving advertisers another data point to track! It literally does the opposite of what is supposed to.

Promote (by adding it as a search option, etc) providers that promise to not track ANY of their users. DuckDuckGo being the most obvious example.
Their is so little difference between Yahoo and Bing search.. and DuckDuckGo is a damn good search engine[2].

Push advertisers off of Flash (generally a good idea, but also will help with privacy – no flash cookies, etc)
Generally I’m supportive of the Click-to-play, etc initiatives Mozilla has taken thus far. Flash is the exception to that rule. Here’s the outline of a plan to push advertisers off of it. (the numbers are obviously made up for illustrative purposes)

Start forcing Click-to-play for Flash when the site has more than 6 plugins running (pick some “high” number, and count all plugins, not just flash)

Reduce the number of plugins to 5, after some number of Firefox releases or some specific Adobe Flash counting metric. Repeat pushing to 4, etc.

Once advertisers get on board and Flash ads aren’t served by the big advertisers, now we can push Flash to click-to-play at 2 instances per page.

Once flash usage drops under 5% [1], we’d be able to push it to default click-to-play for all Flash.

End on a positive note..

I love the new Firefox interface. It’s awesome and makes customizing the browser much better. I’m a nightly user and teach courses on Firefox. I’m not going anywhere (fast) over the DRM decision. Going to keep doing what I do and see how it pans out…

]]>https://bryanquigley.com/crazy-ideas/the-mozilla-i-want/feed2Help people move to L/Ubuntu from Windows XP!https://bryanquigley.com/converting/help-people-move-to-lubuntu-from-windows-xp
https://bryanquigley.com/converting/help-people-move-to-lubuntu-from-windows-xp#commentsTue, 29 Apr 2014 04:15:18 +0000https://bryanquigley.com/?p=2036Continue reading Help people move to L/Ubuntu from Windows XP!→]]>In preparation for the Cherry Hill Library’s XP to Linux Installfest I made a website, presentation and worksheet.

AmISupported.com
Basic site designed to tell users if they are still getting security updates (right now just for Windows) and what their next actions should be.

InstallFestPresentation
Introduces Ubuntu and Lubuntu for non-technical users and also how today’s installfest will work.

InstallFestWorksheet
A place for the user to write down what they use their computer for. And a place for the installfest helpers to write down what works/doesn’t in the LiveCD test.

Items mentioned in the worksheet: The liability release is specific to this Installfest. As for the survey mentioned, I’m very curious just how many non-pae machines or 32 x86 machines there are still in the wild.